Tag: poem

Learning to love or weighing me down?
Quiet at night or just another sound?
How do we tell what we know from what we feel?
How do we learn to separate the right from the real?

Love comes along polluting our minds,

With joy,
Can’t tell if its the high or the boy,
But damn am I learning to love this,
Just as I loathe this feeling of uncontrol,
And watching him spiral two and fro,
And I’m learning myself as he’s finding himself

And I hope we both find unobtainable wealth,
And yet I’m learning…
That it comes with frustration and pain,
And bliss,
And kisses like this in rain,
And…I do not know what else to say
Because am I losing my way?
Am I finding me through the sway?
How do you make words or rhymes when nothing…
Makes…
I am learning…
Learning the difference between what I
Want,
And what I,
Want

It seemed funny at first…
Immediately as she crossed the street,
Bright blue socks, with yellowed feet,
Dressed well in denim dress,
Shoes in hand “No…yes?”

No.

Immediately we said,
As she scratched her head,
“Drugs” and gave dry little laughs,
Continued on our homeward paths,
But then we wondered as she crossed the street,
Why 3 social workers,
Outside the social work school,
Can do nothing,
In the richest country in the world.

How to Love a Man,
I do not know,
But I know how I try,
So let me try to help you,

You love a man,
When he’s too busy to check his phone,
By reminding yourself he just fell into the zone,
That you’re just looking for,
Or to make,
A show,
And the feeling of suffocation,
Gives you a youthful rosy glow,
When he feels like it,

You love a man,
By patching up his pride,
With patience,
By keeping hope alive,
Swallow your frustration,
And wait for that pin to drop,
Because he’ll either destroy himself within,
Or pop.

You love a man,
Why?
Why do you love a man?
Because he’ll drive you mad,
Hell make your rhyming scheme turn bad,
He’ll make you need and want and more,
And always he could go out the door,
You’ll wrap each other in insecurities,
And you’ll think of hanging from a tree,
He’ll say stop,
And you’ll say go,
And then he’ll treat you like a ho,
And then you’ll like it,
Yes, you’ll see,
When he holds you close or lets you be,
You’ll want to stop and do not know,
Where the hell you’ll fucking go,
When he doesn’t treat you like a ho,
When he makes room for you,

And tries to show he likes you, loves, you
“Don’t you know?”
He’s crazy about you and you’ll go
“Love me slow,”
And, yes, he’ll do it.
Yes I know,
I’ve lived it twice,
I’ve been let go,
And you’ll like it, patience or no,
And you’ll take whatever to go with the flow,
And just so you know
That is how you love a modern man,
With your time,
With your hands,
With your mind,
With all that makes you good and kind…
And then you’ll love a man.

Being an alternative black girl in any way shape or form results in critics. It’s not us being over sensitive. It isn’t that we’re all lying, as some suggest. It’s the fact that people are afraid of black women. Across the world we’ve been through that which would break most, and we survive. Wounded and hurting, we survive. Men think they’re entitled to us, other men want to degrade us, and use excuses to justify their internalized racism. Women openly mock us while copying our hair, our nails, and the features that once landed black women in zoos and keeps so many from not being on magazines or billboards. We’ve been taught to hate each other and be suspect. The world has been taught to put us in a box, to keep us oppressed and control what the very concept of blackness is or should be.

And we laugh in their faces, and as more and more soft, original, punk, afro-centric, nerdy, geeky, brilliant, and beautifully soul’d black women support each other we’ll just laugh harder. We’re not black enough? I make my own blackness, and how dare they try to define it for me or anyone else. I’ll put color in my hair, I’ll read my comics, dress up as She-Hulk, write my stories, read about technology, date a white, date an asian boy, date whomever I please, and all the while I’m still black.

All the while I and all the other black girls who embrace themselves and their loves are still cosmic.

*Artist will be tagged on request…namely because google won’t back search